Twitter Mania!

Once upon a time my main purpose for Twitter was to socialize and snoop as much as possible. Twitter for me was live updates on the latest news. This project has made me realize the other benefits and uses of Twitter. When you tweet you are basically tweeting what is on your mind. Whether it is a question, an idea or just something you thought of. You tweet in hopes to get a response to your comments or an answer to your question. Prior to this project I only expected responses from my friends because I only used this to communicate with them. 

1.     How has Twitter been used beyond socializing?

          Besides socializing I think the most important and maybe sometimes overlooked use of Twitter is outreach. Artist and Politicians use this method of outreach to talk to their supporters and keep them updated on their every move. Twitter has also been used as way to self promote. Artists promote their music, album releases and tour dates on Twitter and Politicians use Twitter to promote their platforms. Another way Twitter is used is to stay relevant. When you tweet and you have hundreds and thousands of followers you must tweet every so often to stay fresh in their minds. Otherwise they will think you fell off the face of the earth and even worst they might unfollow you. Being unfollowed on Twitter can be detrimental to everything you stand for because the loss of followers can mean the loss of supporters.

2.       In what ways can Twitter be useful as a journalistic, political and/or organizational tool?  Name and specify these reasons why.

          Journalistic – Journalist write articles and editorials for a living, but what is the purpose of doing this if people may or may not be reading them? Twitter lets Journalist promote their work but challenges them as well. People who are Journalist are skillful writers who have had word limit restrictions in the past but none compares to the 140 word limit imposed on you by Twitter. A Journalist must get down to the basics and tell the reader why they should bother reading their articles. This helps Journalist become better writers in my opinion because it forces them to “spit it out” and possibly improve their writing overall.

          Political/Organizational – Politicians and Organizations can use Twitter for anything. Both can use Twitter to promote and attract people to their political party or business. Twitter is extremely effective for these two types. Also another key use is interaction with their followers. By interacting I mean simply just by tweeting. It does not necessarily mean to tweet followers. Twitter allows them to interact without specifically speaking to one person. Generalizing tweets and speaking to all of their followers will boost their image and support.

3.       What topics/subjects did you choose to follow on Twitter and why?

          Barack Obama – I am a big supporter of Barack Obama. This year’s election was a very meaningful one to me because I was able to vote. My passion for politics runs extremely deep since I keep updated to the politics I follow. I followed President Obama because for one he is our President. Following him on Twitter gives me access to his updates and it lets me know if he is being the good President I believe he is. Seeing his tweet about going to examine New York after hurricane Sandy was reassuring.

          Michelle Obama – I am a huge fan of the first lady. I became a fan after she launched her initiative to stop obesity in kids. I think that she used her status to promote good and shed light on an issue that was not being taken serious. There has been a rise in health initiatives in schools since she spoke out. I also followed her because she is a woman that I admire. She stands behind her husband but she also is strong and does her own thing. I think she is the epitome of a woman.

          Beyonce – I absolutely love Beyonce. She is the Michelle Obama to Jay-Z. She manages her career while having a family.  When I was a little girl I use to sing along to all of Destiny Child’s songs. When Beyonce became a solo artist my fascination with her was taken to another level. She made hit after hit after hit. Beyonce keeps her life private and it makes people want to know more. Following her on Twitter she shares tiny glimpses of her personal life but not too much. I personally believe her level of disclosure is one that we all should follow. The final reason I decided to follow her was because of her and her husband’s support to the presidential campaign. She made people who were not into politics or did not care about politics care.

          Cadillac – The best car maker in my opinion is Cadillac. I am extremely biased because my dad has only ever brought Cadillacs. I am very Pro-America and I tend to shy away from luxury cars because a good amount of them are made in other countries but Cadillac is one of the few American made luxury cars we can be proud of. My dream car is a brand new Cadillac. I just had to follow them to keep updated on the new models they are coming out with.

          Women in Communications in New York is an organization that I have been researching for some time. I first learned about them in an advertisement in the New York Times to attend their annual Matrix award ceremony. I want to be a member one day and I figured what better way to learn about the organization more than by following them on Twitter.

4.       How has this experience using Twitter differentiated from blogging?  From any social media?

          Blogging and using Twitter is very similar. Both allow you to say what is on your mind and gives ample opportunity for others to comment and answer your questions. I think the difference is the word limit and that could either be easy to deal with or tough to deal with. I think all social media has the same purpose but the differences are very technical such as word limits and posting capabilities. Instagram is a good example of this. This form of social media is restricted to posting pictures.

          After using Twitter for this class project and seeing the different ways it can be used I probably will change the way I use Twitter. I thought that I was getting the most out of Twitter but in all reality I was not. This project allowed me to start a clean slate. I was extremely excited because Cadillac replied to my tweet and New York Women in Communications made my tweet a favorite.  

Vimeo dukes it out with YouTube! Who will win?

Reading all four articles you can tell which author of the articles prefers YouTube and which prefer Vimeo. Looking at the articles most of the authors point out the same pros and cons with little difference. Its somewhat repetitive. The only difference is the side/position that they take.

The article you tube vs vimeo says that Vimeo’s upper hand goes to the fact that they have good quality videos, looks clean, and keeps visitors on your page. The cons were based on the 1 limit HD upload per week with the free service. Also the 500 MB upload limit, it has a small community and the best services cost money. When talking about YouTube the author applauses YouTube for its large community and unlimited HD uploading. On the other hand the author looks down on YouTube for being “ugly,” having an overbearing logo embedded at the bottom of video, 10 minute video limit and the fact that you can lose visitors easily. This author chose Vimeo as the user which was odd to me because the pros seem so much better than the cons.

The article pros and cons of you tube and vimeo backs YouTube up all the way. Some pros that this author points out for YouTube is its ownership by Google as being distinct, advertising opportunities and the fact that it is free. The author points out that advertising can be a con as well as a positive. When regarding Vimeo he points out the lack of traffic that Vimeo has. They have 17 million users. Compared to the amount of users YouTube has that 17 million is nothing. Also the author compares prices. Vimeo is free but its best features are only available to paying users.

The articles vimeo over youtube? and hipster vimeo was more in between when choosing which site is better to use. They both stated the pros and cons which kind of matched up with the pros and cons from the previous two articles. The difference between these articles was the neutrality. They mostly stated facts but didn’t pick either side. The article vimeo over youtube?explicitly states that both sites are good so there is no winner but the article hipster vimeo only implies that. You have to fish its position out.

I am in between as well. I see the pros and cons but no site is better than the other. They both have their own things that make them special. The fact that YouTube is free is very appealing but you have to take into consideration the types of companies each site has. Since YouTube is backed by Google and advertisements of course their site is free but Vimeo only has about 30 employees and their profits are mostly based on membership. The Quality of the community for Vimeo makes it appealing to me. Have you ever watched a video on YouTube and scrolled down to see the comments. Some of those comments on YouTube are disgusting and flat-out rude. Vimeo is a bit more tasteful when it comes to comments. They post meaningful things and give helpful tips. Vimeo definitely plays on the phrase “quality over quantity.”

Youtube and Vimeo is another form of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 makes me think of Facebook, Twitter and all of the other Social Networking sites. I have not gave much thought to YouTube and Vimeo being a part of Web 2.0 but given it some thought it does tie in. These sites let you interact with others and find information. That's what all the other sites considered Web 2.0 do. YouTube and Vimeo has many broadcasting abilities. You can post a video and it is out there for millions of people to watch. It is like broadcasting to the world. It is quite amazing.

Video Project

My experience making this movie was very overwhelming. My group including myself has never used iMovie before. We were pretty much the amateur group. It was a little intimidating looking around at all of the other groups and seeing that there were people in their groups who had previous experience with iMovie.  What we lacked in experience we made up in positivity. We did not dwell on this but we used it to our advantage in a way. We knew that when it came to making the actual movie it was going to be somewhat tricky but we made sure our clips were fantastic, and that there were more than enough clips to play around with when it was time to edit.  When we were making our final project we had a lot of clips to use we ended up not using all of them because there was so much. Also another way we excelled was by planning our project down to an exact timing. Before anyone shot any film we gave each other time tables. For example each group member had to have 1:20 worth of usable clips. We set up a date, time and place to film transitions that needed group participation. Organization was our upper hand and the open availability for the group to meet on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s also helped.

Although our lack of experience was seen as a struggle it was not a main struggle that held us back. One struggle that I think served as a blocker for even better work was communication. There was not a lack of communication but there was a lack of understanding and contact. I will first speak on the lack of contact within the group. We all decided to use Facebook as our main communication outside of class. This seemed like a wonderful idea at the time. Especially since we all use Facebook and it is more likely that I will respond to a Facebook message faster than a phone call or text. This way turned out to be a not so efficient way of communicating. I did not realize that not everyone has their Facebook messages sent directly to their phone so they actually did not have quick access to Facebook messages at all times.

Another struggle we had was that we did not understand each other’s ideas. We chose a somewhat complex idea for our movie. When other groups would be moving along we would still be mapping out our movie. It was extremely frustrating because we did not understand each other. When we finally did understand another person’s idea after 30 minutes of explaining we would shoot down the idea or find ways to alter it to our liking and then spend another 30 minutes explaining what we meant.  It was just a big time consumer. I think that we excelled even with these struggles. We did better than I imagined even with our lack of knowledge of iMovie.

I do not knock down any other way of communicating because it all boils down to personal preference. I typically like to communicate through writing. Communicating through writing has its pro’s and con’s. In writing you have to imagine what the author wants you to see. If the author is good at what he/she does and describes in detail you may be able to imagine and get the big picture. Using video to communicate is a great way to communicate. I like how you can visually see what the person wants you to see. Granted not all videos are eye pleasing or self-explanatory but the image is in your face and there might even be text or dialogue to help guide you in understanding. When looking at photographs as a way of communication the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This phrase is photography’s downfall as well as its strength. It is a strength because there can be many things that a photograph communicates. This serves as a downfall because a picture can say anything but, what if the photographer wants one thing to be communicated? I think it all comes down to having an understanding the context of what is being communicated.

Our movie topic was time. When you think of time you automatically think about clocks. When we thought about time we thought about the time or the lack of we have in a day as college students and workers. The direction we went with the movie is to show how we spent our days and how we spent our nights. We broke day and night up into specific times/events and we all took 2 time slots. I showed what I did mid-afternoon and what I did at night. I normally run errands during the day and participate in campus activities. At night I work at Abercrombie and Fitch as an Impact Team member. In my day video it was me filming homecoming activities on campus, studying for various classes and running errands. My night video showed me doing what I do at work. There were clips of me folding a bunch of clothes and taking clothes off of hangers and me clocking out of work. Vincent and Samantha had different parts of the day and showed different things. I am extremely pleased with our video especially since we were creative in depicting time.  You never really know how you spend all of your time until you have to record it. I always complain about time and my self-portrait really helped me sort out how I spend my time.

There are distinctive differences between Vimeo and YouTube. I prefer to watch movies on YouTube but Vimeo is easier to deal with when posting videos. YouTube is cracking down on copyright laws. Since I use music in my video that is copyrighted YouTube will allow my video to stay up but so long. Vimeo is underrated in my opinion. I did not know Vimeo even existed before this project. It seems very user friendly.